Want to introduce ourselves to the members of the AAB community! Winninghoff Boats has been in business for over 40 years but has recently gone under some changes. Earlier this year, the founder of Winninghoff Boats, Jack Winninghoff, sadly passed away at the age of 92. Jack was a pioneer in the aluminum boat industry and poured his heart and soul into what he did. Jack left the company to myself, Bill Stone, because I had the pleasure of working with Jack for over 25 years. Not only did I consider Jack a dear friend but also learned a lot from him and will continue to use my knowledge and passion to continue building aluminum boats under the Winninghoff name.

For those who are not familiar with Winninghoff, and the work we do, we are an aluminum boat building company. We approach every boat build differently and cater specifically to our customers exact needs. From custom length, width and deck layouts, we're here to help make the customers ideas come to reality. Beside boat building, we can help with boat modifications, ladders, water tanks, fuel tanks, truck racks, trailer modifications and gangways. If you have an idea the needs to be built with aluminum, we can help.

I will post some pictures of our past projects and will post updated pictures of current projects we have going on. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

Our latest project was a 36ft gangway for a marina in Gloucester, MA. The hinge system you see in the picture is not of this actual ramp but what we use on all our gangway systems.

This project came in with some hull issues and a leaking gas tank. We cut in a new access panel in the deck, removed the old gas tank, sandblasted and repaired the hull, painted the inside of the hull, made a gas tank bed and new gas tank with all new fittings and hoses.

This boat build was for a local fisherman who has a pretty interesting job. He catches horseshoe crab for scientific research. Once they're caught, he brings them to a lab where blood is drawn from them, but just enough blood to stay alive. Once the lab is done with the crab, he returns them to the ocean so they can be caught once again. This is an 18ft boat with an open layout and rear seat box. You'll also see 2 large holes in the transom and that's so he can easily clean the deck of the boat and let water and debris run out the back.

Here is our 24ft research vessel we did for Cornell University. There was a bunch of custom touches we did with this boat including multiple davits, pot hauler with mount, gallow system for nets and side sonar mounting.

Bill, the skiffs looked nice, Winninghoff is one heck of name to uphold, so: here's some links to consider - finish is important even in a work boat.

Getting scale off is important, even if too few builders agree and even name production builders' skiffs show up with early "corrosion flowers" in just one or two seasons because they refuse to accept that mill scale is toxic to boats!

so: http://www.woodmasterdrumsanders.com/5075x2 this wood working tool will take a 50" wide panel and using hook and loop 3M type buffing strips (mounted to the sanding drum) you'll get skiff sides that look like this:

All the sheet material has been buffed clean of mill scale- you can see some drum chatter in the lower topsides' near the deck line. THe skiff was still acid etched and the cabin is white metal etched in the photo- but all parts were buffed before it was assembled.

Yep it take a bit of time but the images of your skiffs above show lot of hand work- the drum sander runs the entire part through in a few minutes (power feed) and back and forth if needed- I used the brown (coarse) grit to get the mill scale off, also makes a good anchor pattern if your skiffs will be painted?

an alternative I've found that is worth the money (200$US) is the Eastwood roller contour sander/drum buffer. http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-contour-sct.html this roller drive contour sander has Scotchbrite-like drums that will give a good finish compared to the 4" or 7" rotary you're showing in your posts?

You wouldn't leave welds looking like that buff job! So why leave the surfaces of your fine skiffs looking like the surface cleaning wasn't as important as other steps in your build? I've built my share of skiffs and by using vinyl rollers mounted to saw horses; I cleaned the 25' long topsides- both sides, of the skiff shown above in an hour's effort with two men. That surely does rival the time to hoist a hand buffer and clean the sheets- but the drum sander's results are cleanly parallel lines which make the tool repay the labor saved as combination of uniformity and more pro-looking surface.

Just another old builder ranting about mill scale and since I'm so glad "you take it off"- wanted to suggest you consider the methods I've used and found most helpful.

Say Bill, we could use some build threads around here- and obviously you guys are building and repairing? Please take a few minutes now and then to post up some of your current work? I'd sure enjoy a few more pictorial threads, and I'm sure others would too?